Hostile Takeover
by Geekasauruz
Summary: Who do you trust more to drive you to a destination? Who do you trust more to defend your civil liberties on the field of combat? Man or machine? That is the question that dominates the current landscape of technological innovation. Tony Stark seeks to empower mankind by developing cutting edge products. However, he promptly finds himself at odds with mechanical engineer Jo Kimble.
1. One

**_Chapter One: The Chop Shop_**

Jo Kimble hunched over the 'operating table' as she rummaged around inside her 'patient'. The serial on this unit was VFPA P1Alpha. She crinkled her nose as she noticed that the coolant tank was ruptured, in turn leaking goop all over the generator. The coolant seeped into the power supply via its exhaust grills. It looked like the stuff eventually worked its way out, but the initial reaction caused an emergency forced-shutdown. "Found the problem. Coolant leak."

"Is he gonna be alright?" Officer Birch sighed, removing his helmet.

Without a word, the engineer simply unfastened the fixings that kept the tank locked in place. Laying these bolts out in a neat line on the tray next to the table, Jo, who was kneeling on top of a wheeled office chair as she worked, kicked herself and this chair over to a rack in the corner of the room. The rack was lined with spare coolant tanks. There was a problem across the whole batch with brittle plastics being used for the tanks; she'd have to specify exactly what material she wanted for the construction of the next iteration.

The small woman snatched a coolant container up, pushed off the wall with her other hand, and came rolling back to the table. She slowed to a halt exactly where she needed to be then proceeded to refix this new replacement tank. "Did it take any immense impacts in the last few days?"

Birch nodded awkwardly "Y-Yeah. Yeah, sure did. Alf got rammed by a fleeing vehicle down at Soho yesterday. Was fine until we got back to the station; even then diagnostics didn't say there was anything wrong."

Jo was delighted that the police officer felt so attached to the drone that he gave it a nickname, but she wasn't one to broadcast her feelings. "Alf?" She asked monotonously.

"Well...yeah. Y'know, as in 'Alpha'. I've set him to recognise it as an alternative designation."

In the seconds that it took for Birch to answer, Jo had tightened the new coolant tank into place. "The damage was most likely caused by blunt force to the outer hull; in this case, that fleeing vehicle. Come." She said, ushering Birch over with a hand.

Birch moseyed over to Jo and peered over her shoulder. She raised the cracked tank. "The impact cracked the coolant tanksince it sits flush against the inner frame. It then leaked into the generator. In case it breaks again, use a spanner to release the bolts holding the tank in. The rest should be self-explanatory."

"Wow...thanks, ma'am."

Jo slapped a button on the side of the table. The bed slowly tilted, until the humanoid machine on its surface was in a standing position. Then, she picked up her diagnostics tablet and input a few commands. A second later, a whirring and clicking noise began to emanate from Alf, signalling that its generator had been rebooted.

Eventually, it spoke with that signature text-to-speech flavour. "MetCon VFPA online. Unit P one Alpha, power cycle complete. Synchronisation with control suite complete. Ready for operation."

The machine took a single step away from the table and awaited orders from its partner.

"Anything else to report?" Jo pressed Birch.

The man shook his head. "No, ma'am. After yesterday's patch, the lag during conversion was gone. I think Mitchell has something to talk about."

"Officer Mitchell. That's unit P one Delta?"

"Yeah, that's her." Birch said with a nod.

Jo tapped away on her tablet, her eyes not once meeting Birch's. "Send her in."

Birch smiled at Jo and moved towards the exit of the makeshift drone bay. "Sure thing, Miss Kimble. C'mon Alf, let's book it."

"Acknowledged, Officer Birch." Alf replied as it processed the command that Birch had programmed to signify 'follow partner officer' and executed. The six-and-a-half-foot tall machine walked as elegantly as any human as it followed Birch out of the room.

So far, Jo was extremely satisfied with the prototype testing of the VFPAs. As part of the prototype phase, the company she worked for loaned five units to the New York Police Department. Jo, as the lead engineer and project director for the VFPAs, spent a lot of time onsite to make sure they were doing well, and to listen to any feedback from the testing crew. The drones were performing as designed, even exceeding benchmarks. Jo didn't foresee how the testing officers would become emotionally attached to their units...if she did, she might've talked to the software team about more than one voice option. She quickly jotted down a reminder on her tablet to bring this up next time she dropped by thesoftware lead, as well as to redesign the coolant tank's shape so that it didn't sit up against the frame. Because of the current design, the blow to Alf didn't damage his armour but the force was handed over to the coolant tank since it was flat against the plate.

At that point, Officer Mitchell strolled in alongside her VFPA unit, P1Delta. Mitchell, as well as every officer that was testing the robotic partners for MetCon, was outfitted with equipment designed to complement her role. On her forearm was a control tablet with which officers could command their VFPAs with a user-friendly interface; they could plot walk tracks, play specific phrases from their onboard speakers, tell them to follow, hold position, engage in crowd control, and more. Additionally, as Birch demonstrated, an officer could issue commands verbally. These phrases could be interpreted by the speech-recognition software installed into the units.

"What's the problem?" Jo asked, not looking at Mitchell but instead still at her tablet.

Mitchell stopped and crossed her arms. Since Delta was executing the 'follow' command, it copied its partner's momentum. "I was thinking that Delta would be more helpful if I didn't have to tell him what to do all the time. There anything you can do about that?" Said Mitchell.

Jo arched an eyebrow as she continued sorting through diagnostic data. "What exactly do you mean?'

The officer shrugged as she walked a little closer to Jo. "The other day I was caught in a firefight. First, I had to dive behind cover, find the perps, then draw my sidearm. After I do all of this, I realise that Delta's standing out in the open because he's still on 'follow'. So, obviously, I had to take my focus from the situation to tell him to enter combat mode, mark the armed individuals for him with my tablet, then tell him to open fire. That's a whole lot of time civilians could've gotten shot in."

"You want the unit to be able to react to the environment, instead of you."

"Yeah, I guess."

"The company doesn't want to pursue sophisticated artificial intelligence right now. If it was up to me though, these prototypes would be operating on a system like that already."

"But they already have A.I, right?"

"Yep. But it's very basic."

"Like Siri?" Mitchell mused.

"Yeah. The VFPAs can recognise user input and associate these commands with an action. Whether it means retrieving information like a criminal record or opening fire on a target, it's still just simple commands. Like Siri when you tell it to call someone. It's literally the same code."

Mitchell propped herself onto a crate and rubbed her chin. "Right...I keep forgetting what Artificial Intelligence means. It ain't real intelligence. It's fake...it's meant to look like intelligence, right? So is...is giving Delta the ability to analyse a situation even possible?"

Jo blinked a couple times. She finally looked away from her tablet, but not at Mitchell. She gazed at a spot near Mitchell's feet. "I think it is. It'll always be artificial to us because we've broken it down into things that we can understand on a working level. Listening and replying in simple ways are things that human children do, but that's real to people. The VFPAs don't listen and act the same way as children do, but at that point it doesn't make a difference. They're both doing the same thing. I think we just need to find a way for the hardware to detect things like elevated heartrates, sweat, uncomfortable facial expressions, and things like that so they can assess situations more thoroughly."

"Also, how to tell a gun apart from a stapler. That would help." Mitchell joked.

Jo huffed out of her nose, her version of a chuckle. "Short answer; we can't do anything about that because my new boss is regurgitating Tony Stark's opinion on A.I. because he's Tony Stark."

"Well...I don't blame him. You know, there was that one A.I. that went rogue and killed heaps of people."

Jo then began a ramble; something that Mitchell was used to nowadays. "I blame the creator. Ultron wasn't a person, it was a thing. It was doing what it was told to do. When a car explodes for no reason and kills the people inside, do people blame the car? No, they blame the people who designed the car. Hank Pym was a physicist. He had no business building a peacekeeping platform capable of sweeping decisions. What happened was that he gave it an unclear parameter, it interpreted it in a matter of fact way, then executed. Machines can't think; they can't put their own spin on things."

Mitchell smiled. "You think you can do it better."

"Well. Yeah. Maybe. Yes. Eventually. Pym ruined it for everyone. Now they think artificial intelligence is the devil, despite the fact that everyone has one in their pockets."

As if it heard her current conversation, Jo's phone vibrated in her pocket.

"Nice talking to you again. Wish you'd be here more often." Mitchell said as she left with her VFPA in tow.

Jo pulled her phone out and saw that she had a handful of missed calls and a text from her colleague Lan asking 'Where are you? You're an hour late.'.

—————————-

Without making eye contact with anyone in the conference room, Jo pushed through the door, slunk around to the end furthest away from everyone and plonked herself into a chair.

"Okay...now that...I'm sorry, what was your name?" The new CEO of MetCon started. He was a thirty-something year-old man with a head of slicked back brown hair. He was a fairly good-looking man, not that Jo was looking at him to see it anyway.

"Jo."

"Oh, cool. Is that short for...Josephine?

"No."

"Joline?"

"Nope."

"Joanne?"

"No."

"What's it short for?"

"Nothing."

"Your name's Jo...? Just Jo?"

"Yeah."

"Is that...is that what it says on your driver's licence?"

"I don't have a driver's licence."

"Is that what it says on your passport?"

"Yeah."

The man crossed his arms with an impressed look on his face. The rest of the people in the meeting were in the middle of facepalming. "I'm Lionel Stanton, the new CEO. I'm...pretty sure we haven't met yet. You are..." Lionel glanced down at a sheet of paper on the desk. "The lead engineer? Wow. You're a little young, aren't you?"

"I'm twenty-nine."

"Oh. You're just tiny then. No problem." Lionel quipped with an awkward laugh. "Okay, now that Jo is here, we can get started. As most of you know, my name is Lionel Stanton and I'm the new Chief Executive Officer voted in by the shareholders following that mess of a year that was twenty eighteen. Now, we are going to rethink the future. We are going to rethink the present."

He pointed up at the whiteboard behind him which was fastened with a magnet that bore the MetCon logo on it. Lionel continued "First of all...this name. Military Electronics and Technology Consolidated. It's square. It's boring. Also, this?" He slapped another magnet onto the board that read 'VFPA'. Jo of course, had her attention on the spinning reflection of the ceiling fan on the conference table so she wasn't alerted to the jab at her personal project until Stanton said "This isn't a consumer-friendly name. Vee-eff-pee-ay?"

Jo's eyes lanced onto the whiteboard.

"Vooffpah? I mean, what is that, right?" Stanton laughed, inciting a few others in the room to do the same.

"It's...it's an acronym." Lan Cho, the programmer for the VFPA computer systems and lead designer on all MetConelectronics, muttered.

"What's it stand for?"

Lan replied "Variable-form policing aid."

Stanton scrunched his face up in confusion. "Yeah, no. That stinks. That's not going to get people to look at you. This is the problem with this company, man. You need to stand out! You need to be hip! You need to be now! When people think tech, they're not thinking about you. They're thinking about this guy."

He slammed yet another magnet onto the whiteboard. It was the smiling, bearded face of Tony Stark. "He is your worst enemy. Hate him! Hate his guts! He's the reason your government contract is being questioned. People don't want robots anymore, people want suits! They want armour! So Jo, no more robots. We're going to do suits too."

Jo shrugged. "Nah."

"What do you mean 'nah'? Why not? What's wrong with a suit?"

"It has a person in it. They can die." Jo retorted.

"Well...yeah, but--"

Sarah McGregor, the public relations manager, promptly responded "Jo's unmanned drones mean that no one needs to be harmed in dangerous situations. They can be controlled remotely or act autonomously with a human aide, can be mass-produced, and are designed to assist people, not replace them. If Stark started shipping his 'Iron Man suits' to every cop shop in New York, there'd be piles of body bags the size of Mount Rushmore. Worst of all, it would mean escalation. Hello, Lionel? Ivan Vanko? Obadiah Stane? Justin Hammer? How many times have maniacs tried to rip-off that hardware and gotten people killed? No one rips-off Jo's tech because they aren't killing machines; they're tools for our brave men and women to use to save lives."

People around the room started nodding in response to Sarah's devoted defence of MetCon's unmanned drones. Lionel licked his lips then said "That's awesome. Really. If we wanna keep doing robots, that's fine. I'm just throwing things out there."

He then threw up another magnet. "Starting next weekthough, we're going to rebrand."

The magnet read 'ARGENT' and had tiny words underneath each letter. "Advanced Robotics, General Electronics and Neural Technologies. It gives everyone a clear idea of what we do, how we do it, and best of all, it sounds cool. All MetCon told people was that you guys make guns or something, right? It wasn't specific enough. This, it runs through everything. It tells people what you do, Jo. It tells people what you do, Ian."

"It's Lan."

"Yeah that's what I said, Lan. And it tells people what you do, Holly."

Holly Ibanez was the designer of the neural hardware that was being worked into some military departments, helping remove input lag when dealing with dangerous situations through drone usage. She thinned her lips and said "That's...actually not a bad idea."

Stanton planted his hands onto his hips. "Of course it isn't. Look, now we need a new name for the police robots. Something cooler but still highlights how it turns into a motorbike, because that's your thing Jo. No one else can do it as well as you do. That's what sets us apart from Stark and everyone else; we got transformers."

Lan rolled his eyes and looked at Jo to ascertain her reaction. She was cringing, like she was watching something mildly disgusting like someone drop a candy bar onto dirt, pick it up, then eat it.

"Maybe even redesign them. Instead of having those memory alloy wheels that fold up into the bodies, I dunno give 'em some old rubber tires you can see that it transforms."

"That's counter-intuitive. Shape memory alloy tires can't be popped, and they save space. Having the wheels hang out blocks articulation of the arms, also makes the unit larger and stops it from entering smaller structures." Jo answered.

"Okay don't worry about the wheels. New name, alright? Just throw it out there. Anybody."

There were a few seconds of silence before Craig Watts, general manager, said "Robocop."

Murmurs of laughter echoed through the room. Stanton sighed heavily. "Thanks, Craig. You're a real funny guy, you know that? You should become a comedian. Come on. Anyone? Something like...like...Hermes, because it goes fast. Or Mercury. Same guy, technically."

"Cooperative Operations Bi-modal Robotic Aid. COBRA." Sarah added.

Stanton clapped. "Sarah, holy cow that is fantastic. You're the exact person who should be on public-relations. Beautiful. Any objections Jo? This is your project. Yay or nay?"

Jo shrugged. "A little much. But as long as the name isn't lying to anybody, I don't care."

"Excellent. Roll with it for the next iteration, alright? Where are we on that, stage two prototypes or production?"

Jo said "I'd like to go to production after a few more weeks at Brooklyn."

"Alright, nice work. This leads into my next point. Tony Stark designs, programs, and engineers everything. He also keeps close to the people, you know what I'm saying? He has a tight relationship with the consumers. We need that. We need every single one of you guys to be the face of your departments."

Confused glances rotated around the conference table.

Stanton leant onto the desk as he said "He does interviews, he does TED talks for crying out loud. He talks to the people about his product in a real deep way because he's the one who designs everything. We need you people to do that. Sarah? We're going to expand the public relations department. We're going to get makeup people and wardrobe people whenever we go to public events. Also, you're gonna have your own film crew. Make us some interview videos, factory tours, whatever it takes to get the consumers closer to us. You feel me?"

Sarah nodded excitedly with a psychotic grin on her face.

"So Lan, Holly, Jo, you all are going to start doing press because you're our top brains."

Jo's brow twitched. Lan sent her an amused smirk, knowing full-well that she wasn't a people person. Jo abruptly stood. Everyone in the room but Stanton knew that it was time for one of Jo's trademark splurges. They all knew she was stubborn, uncompromising, and difficult to work with...but they gave her space to do her own thing. Suddenly, Stanton was turning everything upside down and forcing her to do something that she didn't want to do.

"I'm not doing press. Get an actor."

"We can't do that, Jo. That's ingenuine."

"So is everything else you've been talking about."

"Listen, we need you to do this. The last financial year was a big loss. If the company goes through something like that again, everyone in this room is out of a job. To fix that, we need to change how people see us. Think about people like Tony Stark, Elon Musk, and Neil DeGrasse Tyson. Everybody loves them. They're science rockstars. That's what sells nowadays."

Sarah turned in her chair to face Jo and said "Hon, don't worry. I'll make sure it isn't anything too crazy for you, okay? We could even just stick to videos if you like."

Jo breathed deeply for several seconds before she simply nodded.

Stanton laughed. "Excellent. Good job. Okay, so we still got one gig to go before our big rebrand. The New York Emerging Technologies Convention is in a week, so we're going to go about this a bit different. We're going to have our products on display on the show floor, including the COBRAs, the supercomputers, and the neural stuff. Everyone needs a demo model of their project ready to go by Friday. Now let's do this. Let's put Stark out of business."


	2. Two

**_Chapter Two: Love Thy Neighbour_**

The sweetest part of human life was being able to see the results of its ingenuity, Tony believed. He walked the floor of the New York Emerging Technologies Convention with a smile on his face, gazing at the wealth of people who had devoted their time and effort to bettering the human condition with science. One of his personal favourites was a chemical compound that could break down garbage at the molecular level, rendering landfills obsolete. He offered the inventors a blank cheque if they wanted to merge with his crisisprevention subsidiary, Force Works, and continue their research. Needless to say, the small team of underpaid scientists promptly took up his offer.

Companies like Roxxon Corporation, A.I.M., Horizon, and Oscorp were here demoing their latest projects. Of course, Tony shipped out models of his newest personal protection equipment for military and government use to be displayed at the Stark Industries booth. A.I.M was an organisation that Tony had his eyes on for the last five years or so. His work as Iron Man had uncovered loose evidence that they held ties to Hydra, the neo-Nazi terrorist cell. He had yet to prove anything, but he'd been wary of the corporation. This year, they were displaying advanced compressed processors that meant that in a few years, a desktop quality computer could be the size of a Game Boy. Nothing too suspicious...but it wasn't enough to convince Tony that they weren't doing bad stuff behind the scenes.

"Oh my god, Tony Stark!" A young man called. Tony turned and saw a twenty-something guy and his group of friends.

"You want a picture? People usually exclaim my name loudlyif they want a picture. Come on, let's do it." Tony quipped.

The six college students crowded around Tony as one of them raised their phone to take a selfie. The flash went off, and the young adults were overridden by excitement. Tony remarked "Thanks for coming, have fun, and don't get too excited. Break a leg."

With that, he continued on his leisurely stroll through the convention. Eventually he came up on the booth for an older company called MetCon. In his father's time, MetConproduced targeting systems for missiles, and chemical propellant. Nowadays, they had become the world's foremost manufacturer of unmanned combat drones, lethal energy weapons, advanced firearms, and cyberwarfare suites. Tony admired the mechanical aspect of their work, primarily the ability for most of their machines to convert into a secondary configuration. He learned that their new policing drone, currently going through prototype testing at the NYPD's Brooklyn precinct, could seamlessly convert into a motorcycle-like vehicle. Since the robots were designed to be partnered with a human officer, this was a great idea. Not only did MetCon stretch over to the defence vehicle market, they did it with a drone product. The sheer engineering demand to make something like that work astounded Tony. Sure, he could've done it himself if he spent enough time on it, but he was more focused on the field of powered armour. Yeah, he liked the technical stuff, but he didn't agree with the ethics ofremoving humans from conflict altogether. The loss of human life meant war was something to be avoided; if war didn't involve death, who cared if it kept happening or not? Countries would keep fighting each other and there would be constant hostility because there are no negative consequences. Tony believed it was built on good intentions, but short-sighted in the long run. People needed to be rewarded for cooperation and penalised for hostility.

Tony approached one of their policing models that he remembered was called the VFPA. However, upon closer inspection, he discovered that the line had been renamed COBRA. He winced at the obvious attempt to make it sound nicer. He gathered that it was the action of MetCon's new image-focused CEO that he'd heard was making waves by restructuring the company ahead of a rebranding that was coming in the next few weeks.

This display model of the COBRA was standing on a rotating turntable that showed off all the machine's mechanical work. Tony peered closer to the details. He spotted many different flaps, pivet points, joints, hydraulic pistons and locking mechanisms that were all probably parts of the now-famous converting feature of MetCon robotics. Suddenly, the COBRA lurched forward, rolled its shoulders back, folded in on itself, and laid onto the ground. Before long, two masses of a netted metal material were released from each bottom end of the COBRA. These netted shapes then became rigid in a matter of seconds, forming the instantly recognisable tires for the COBRA's motorcycle configuration.

Tony smirked, recognising that this material was shape memory alloy, first created for Mars rovers by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It was unique since after being deformed, the metal could revert to its original programmed shape; it was essential for a Mars vehicle since driving around on Mars could easily misshape the traditional static metaltires. Metal was used instead of rubber because changing a flat for a vehicle millions of miles away from any human being would be rather difficult. MetCon took advantage of shape memory alloy to create tires that could be folded up and stored inside the COBRA's hull when it was in humanoid mode.

Now a bike, the COBRA continued to rotate on its turntable.Tony continued absorbing the jagged, utilitarian edges of its design. It told him that its designer didn't give a crap about showing off, only about getting the job done as efficiently as possible. Personally, Tony would've panelled off those exposed joints, clamps and pistons, and maybe coated them in glossy paint. This stock COBRA was simply gunmetal grey, however. The prototypes with the NYPD were painted much like their police cars; white with blue trim.

He appreciated the angular look but knew that people who spent good money on these things wanted more than just a factory machine. Thinking about the social end of things was important. He didn't paint his powered armour glossy red and gold because he had an ego problem...well, he did have an ego problem, but the colours had nothing to do with that. His original prototype, the one he built in a cave using scraps, was the same colour as this COBRA. It was raw, unrefined, and messy. Why? Because he built it with this same design mantra; to get the job done. To save his own life...and that of a friend... So when he started using the suit after the escape, innocent civilians were afraid of him. They saw a hulking monster made of steel. Its primitive power generator revved like a roaring dragon.

A coat of gold paint was his first attempt. It was so that people knew that he wasn't to be feared, so that he looked like a knight in shining armour. The red came later once he reworked the suit to be more streamlined, less bulky.

Iron Man was shiny and spectacular because if he wasn't, the people he was protecting would fear him. He could fire focused energy pulses out of his hands. He had the most powerful particle laser on the planet built into his chest. He needed to remind people that he was more than just a weapon. This was the problem that Tony felt MetCon was having. They were forgetting about the human factor. The fact that heart was what mattered. That was a lesson that Tony had to learn about the hard way.

Suddenly, someone called to him from behind "Hi sir, can I help you with anything?"

Tony straightened his posture and turned around. The woman he saw was tall, slender, and not bad on the eyes. "I can think of quite a few things you could help me with..." He gazed down at her nametag. It read 'Public Relations Manager- Sarah McGregor'. "Sarah."

"Oh. It's you." She groaned.

Mister Stark dug his hands into his pockets with a smile. "Whatever happened to professional courtesy, huh? You know, we treat each other with respect and what not...it's what your old boss would've wanted."

"Miss Hastings was voted off. Because of you."

"Because...I ran my company well? How is your financial loss my fault?"

"Iron Man. He's the best marketing stunt I've ever seen. Who wants stuff from that loser company when you can buy stuff that Iron Man made?"

Tony shrugged. "You said it, not me."

Sarah's eyes burned holes into the middle of Tony's head.

"Not a very good PR person, are you? Kind of making a scene here." He joked as he gestured over his shoulder. "Now why don't you run along and let me look at this incredible hardware you've got, if you don't mind?"

People passing by were beginning to take notice of Sarah's rageful stare, which seemed like it was going to burn a hole into his forehead. Sarah blinked rapidly, turned, and stormed off without a word. Tony raised a hand to the side of his mouth and called "That's a nice catwalk strut, Sarah. You should get into modelling."

Satisfied with his ridiculing of a complete stranger, Tony turned back to the COBRA. There were several units on display, all uniform in model type. He also finally noticed a woman seated on the turntable by the second most COBRA, fiddling with its external fittings with a series of tools. She was rather small, had her very frizzy hair tied up in a badly grasped ponytail, wore a pair of grease-stained jeans, a flannel shirt, and had an ID tag hanging around her neck by a lanyard. As the turntable spun around, Tony could see that it said'Lead Engineer: Jo Kimble'. The billionaire tightened his tie, cocked his head and sauntered over to her. "Is there a need to calibrate those joint motors right now?"

The woman didn't avert her eyes from the COBRA as she said"No. Not really."

"Noticed it but couldn't get it off your mind?" Tony asked coolly as he leant onto the handrails in front of the displays.

"Something like that."

"I get that, kinda the same myself. It's like noticing a crooked photo on the wall. Getting the whole dual-functionality thing right was nice work. Props for that."

"It was simple...actually."

"Modest and brilliant, that's rare. Engineering a skeletal structure that can reconfigure itself and retain its integrity isn't really simple, let alone coding a pathfinding suite that makes sure your half-tonne machine doesn't step on someone when its walking down the street."

Jo furrowed her brow but kept staring straight into the insides of the COBRA as she set the tool she held down and reached for another one that laid by her side. "I get paid to do it. It's pretty simple."

"Well, if getting paid to do something makes someone good at it, the world would be a much better place."

"Listen...I'm busy. Maybe you could give me a minute." Jo requested monotonously.

Tony smacked his lips. "You'd probably recognise me if you looked up just once but who am I to judge?"

The woman, after several minutes of talking to this man, finally looked up at his face. Her expression dropped to one that, according to Tony's mind, made it seem as if she had just caught someone dropping food on the floor, then proceeding to pick it up and eat it anyway. "I'm not supposed to be talking to you."

"Well you kinda broke that rule already. Listen, I've followed your work. Read your papers on dynamic structural framings and everything, real ground-breaking stuff."

"...What do you want?" Jo mumbled.

Tony shoved one of his hands into his pocket as he continued "Gloria Hastings was a friend of mine. She talked about you a lot before she was voted off by the board. Said you've got some good ideas. I want to offer you a job."

Jo wrinkled her forehead. "Why?"

"You can't tell me that your new boss rubs you the right way. Lemme guess...he's the one who made you rebrand the VFPAs. That's only the beginning. He's gonna shake things up in a big way. Could be for the better...but it could be for the worse. If you come work for me, I'm gonna let you do whatever the hell you want to make the world a better place."

The head mechanical engineer at MetCon pursed her lips as she thought about Tony's offer. After several seconds her eyes averted from Tony's and she continued "What kind of projects would you want me on?"

"Anything you can think up that's applicable in non-lethal methods. We have a strict no lethal weapons policy at Stark, but that's about it."

Jo, finally showing an inkling of human emotion, weakly arched an eyebrow. "I want to develop the VFPAs into problem-solving, threat-assessing automatons."

"You...want to write advanced A.I."

"Yeah."

Tony scrunched up his face in moral strain. "Well...you can do anything but that."

"Why not?" Jo pressed.

"It's dangerous."

"So, Vision is dangerous?"

At this point, Tony felt his already short amount of patience beginning to wane. "Excuse me?"

"They're either all bad, or they aren't."

This was a direct jab at one of Tony's closest friends, the artificial man and one of the mightiest Avengers, Vision. He had sinister origins as a partner designed and constructed by Ultron in order to fulfil what it had interpreted as its prime directive; protect the Earth by removing humanity from it. Ultron was a disaster alright...but Vision was the one good thing to come out of it all. The whole ordeal opened Tony's eyes to the other side of human ingenuity; the side that could synthesize things that it didn't understand until it was too late. The atom bomb was a past example. No one realised what the consequences of this technology would be until someone let it off the hook...and the same went for Ultron.

"Look, we can talk ethics all we want when you move your stuff over from MetCon."

"I'm not going to work for you." Jo said casually.

"Sorry?"

"I don't want your job." The woman clarified bluntly.

Tony Stark wasn't the someone you'd want to offend. Not because he'd get angry or anything, but because of his pride. He'd hold grudges for a long time, as a certain Captain had found out several times in the past. "Shame. Well, your work's a bit inelegant to be honest. And a bit gimmicky. Transforming robots. That's original."

Jo's eyes flickered with rare spite. Tony pulled a pair of sunglasses out of his pocket, slipped them on, and said "I'll give you a call if I need some Megazords or something, Jo.Nice knowing you."

With that proud quip, Tony strode off into the distance as Jo continued glaring at the pompous man.

———————————-

"Tony. You gotta get that stick outta your ass." James Rhodes scoffed as he watched Tony sit cross-legged on the top of his office desk devouring a large burrito.

"She turned me down, Rhodey. Who does she think she is?"

Jim cocked his head. "...A human being with free will?"

"I did it for Gloria. She asked me to offer her a job, you know." He said with his mouth full.

The pair were sitting in Tony's office in the Stark Industries New York headquarters. The place was right around the corner from the Emerging Technologies Convention, so Tony promptly retreated after being 'humiliated' by Jo's declination.

"Gloria Hastings? Why'd you do it?"

Tony rolled his eyes and chomped on his burrito. With another load of food in the hatch, he mumbled "You know why."

Rhodes crossed his arms and shrugged. "So, she knew your dad. Doesn't mean you need to start taking on some random person for her. You weren't pursuing her for a legitimate position?"

"Don't be ridiculous. She's good, but not what I want. She wants to fool around with A.I., Rhodey. I'm pretty sure I don't have to tell you why that's bad."

"Yeah, you don't. Then she must've been drop-dead gorgeous for you to even notice her."

"She's drop-dead something alright. As in she looks like she recently engaged in dropping-dead herself. Kind of has this vibe that says she has twenty-six cats waiting for her at the apartment."

The former Air Force Colonel furrowed his brow. "Okay, now you've lost me. Look, my point is, who the hell cares?"

Stark sighed and tossed his burrito onto the desk and threw his arms up in defeat. "Maybe you're right."

"Of course I'm right. When am I not right?"

"When you're wrong."

"Now are you going back to the Convention or are you gonnastay up here having a sook and getting yourself fat on comfort food?"

"I'm docking your pay for that statement."

"It was a question, actually. You're meant to be smart."

Tony jerked his head toward the door. "Tell them I got busy or something, I dunno."

Jim chuckled in disbelief "I'm your chief of security, not personal assistant. I have shit to take care of, if you don't mind."

"Why do I even keep you around?"

"Because I saved your ass a handful of times, took over for you when you were drowning yourself in booze, and put up with your constant bullshit fifteen hours a day."

"That's a good point." Tony quipped as Rhodes approached the door and pulled it open.

Before he slipped through, he turned to Tony as he suddenly remembered something. "Oh, by the way, you got a private message from Natasha. Something about intel you requested?"

"You got me all excited by getting to the door and opening it, now you're standing there and talking to me like you weren't just about to leave. Go. Let me wallow in peace."

"Fuck you, Tony." Jim then shut the door rather gently.


	3. Three

**_Chapter Three: Mid-Flight Development_**

The original New York headquarters for the Avengers was a refitted mansion that Tony had initially dumped everyone inside due to the lack of other places for them to operate out of. It worked though, and it proved to be a comfortable home for anyone who needed it. Once the roster expanded however, the Avengers were in great need of a larger base. Fortunately for them, one of their charter members was a multi-billionaire. Avengers Tower was built in the heart of New York City, and was a reminder to everyone that they were going to be looked after.

Tony just exited from the extensive security check-in process at the entrance of the Avengers HQ, then pulled out his phone. Once again, he ran through the data that he requested from Agent Romanoff, who was currently engaged in a deep cover op somewhere in east Asia. She was in the process of gathering black market intel on a large number of both S.H.I.E.L.D and Avengers targets. What Tony was after was more dirt on A.I.M., a company that he had dealings with in the past but couldn't tie their crimes to them directly.

The Black Widow's intelligence package contained a lead on what was apparently a stockpile of illicit materials, chemical weapons, and stolen technology. Her data indicated that it may be tied to A.I.M., but there was nothing concrete. Tony intended to find this link personally.

Stark strolled through the main lobby of the Tower and saw that it was, as usual for the middle of the day, empty.

Seconds later, Tony entered the armoury; the specialised facility inside Avengers tower that stored and maintained what he called his 'Powered Defence Systems', known colloquially as the 'Iron Man suits'. The main chamber of the armoury was an extremely tall cylindrical room, filled to the brim with PDS units. They lined the armoury's walls in levels, continuing all the way to the ceiling. Each suit was confined to a secure cell that was ID locked. The circular floor acted as an elevator, so if Tony wished to inspect a certain suit, he could slap a command on the computer or verbalise it, and the elevator would move to the desired level.

Tony said out loud "Model thirteen."

The armoury's speech-recognition instantly interpreted Tony's verbal command and responded with a chirp. Tony set his phone onto the computer table as he removed his jacket. The floor hummed as it began ascending to the level that the PDS Model 13 was docked at. Stark dumped his jacket onto the desk as well, then found himself gazing at the other suits that were looking right back at him with lifeless eyes.

Iron Man had become his obsession. He had an entire fleet of PDS machines, each one designed to fulfil a particular purpose. Tony had devoted his time to constructing dedicated models for eventualities such as stealth missions, operations in space, survival in extreme temperatures, all-out war scenarios, maximum thrust output, and more.

The 13, called the General-Purpose Type Iteration 6 or the 'Modular Suit', was the sixth suit Tony had designed to be well-balanced and useable in most Earthly situations. It was the thirteenth suit in total that he built. What set the Model 13 apart were the attachment packages that could be fitted to its modular frame, which could increase its hardware capabilities on the go. Some examples of these packages are a high-speed thruster array, an extended weapons armament, harmonic resonator attachments, and hydraulic load arms. Although they would not be as effective as some of the aforementioned specialised suits built for similar circumstances, the module packages could be installed during flight and removed all the hassle of having to change suits in the middle of a battle or dangerous situation. After all, the PDS mechanisms weren't some kind of magic material that could instantly cover Tony as soon as he needed it to; they were held together by bolts, brackets, locks, vices, and all of these needed to be tightened around him. It was human technology. This made the Modular Suit a good all-rounder since it could adapt to a certain degree, despite it being years older than Tony's latest suits. Right now, his latest model was Number 27.

The elevator grinded to a halt, and the cell containing the Model 13 extended out of the wall. "Model 13; General Purpose Type, Iteration Six. Last diagnostics test performed four hours, thirty-six minutes ago. Results: nominal." The computer declared. This wasn't any kind of artificial intelligence, only a hands-free interface that used text-to-speech to relay computational data.

"Cool. Transfer suit to Quinjet four and take me to the hangar." Tony muttered.

With a chirp, the Model 13's containment cell receded into the wall, disappearing from sight. A panel promptly slid into place to cover the gap left by the suit. Simultaneously, the armoury elevator rolled its way up to the ceiling of the cylindrical room. Metres away from the top, this aforementioned ceiling split open, revealing the Tower's hangar bay beyond.

The elevator seamlessly connected Tony's hall of armour to the vehicle launch bay which was lined with seven Quinjets and the accompanying refuelling, maintenance, and refitting equipment for each. The Quinjet was a high-speed transit craft designed by King T'Challa and his Wakandan research and development team specifically for the Avengers. Able to achieve hypersonic speeds while maximising comfort during acceleration and deceleration though the employment of Wakandan inertial dampening technology, the Quinjet was a next-generation vehicle that combined stable flight with high speed. The inertial dampeners meant that it could accelerate to its top speed extremely quickly without harming the occupants.

As Tony strolled down the hanger towards Quinjet 4, he was greeted by a voice that he wasn't exactly thrilled to hear. "Why the hell are you taking a jet? You can fly."

Stark rolled his eyes and turned to face the docking position of Quinjet 2, which had its landing ramp open so its pilot could exit. It was Clint Barton, AKA Hawkeye, just returned from a field operation by the looks of it. Leaving the aircraft alongside him were Black Knight and Mockingbird. They seemed to immediately make for the exit in anticipation of the hellfire that was about to rain down upon them. Tony called after them "Oh, not even a hello for the guy who pays your salary and lets you sleep in his house?"

Black Knight huffed in amusement. "Mission was successful by the way. Not that you really care."

"Look Dane, the sooner we leave the better. You don't want to be here for this conversation." Mockingbird warned.

The Knight smirked weakly as he adjusted the hilt of his sword as it sat within its sheath on his hip "You're making it sound like something I do want to be here for."

As Mockingbird urged Black Knight out of the hangar, Tony crossed his arms and slowed his saunter.

"Well my dear Clinton, it would take the Model 13 approximately one hour and twenty-six minutes at top speed to get me where I'm going. It does have the specially designed Thrust Acceleration Package module that pops it up to Mach 7, but that would still take seventeen minutes and twenty-two seconds and require me to disengage the hardware link before entering any kind of armed confrontation."

Clint raised his hand and opened his mouth to speak, but Tony didn't give him the time of day. He asked a stupid question, and Tony was determined to answer it smartly. "Yeah look, I don't really--"

"The Model 21, which runs at Mach 25 with the pedal down, could clock the trip in five minutes and two seconds, but the thing isn't gonna last in a firefight and the accelerative g-forces may or may not result in me blacking out and smacking into the ocean at nineteen-thousand, one-hundred and eighty-one miles per hour. You know how experimental tech is."

"Stark...I'm gonna shoot you right in the--"

"Additionally, you try lying horizontally in a half-tonne suit for more than sixty seconds. Causes a lot of back pain and cramping. I'm working on that though. Memory padding, maybe. I dunno. But hey, right now, I'd rather fly comfortably. Thanks pal." Tony concluded as he pointed nonchalantly at Clint.

Hawkeye grimaced "Remind me to never talk to you ever again, asshole."

"It would be my absolute pleasure, Mister Barton." Said the billionaire as he continued on his merry way.

As Tony approached Quinjet 4, he spied the Model 13's containment cell being carried across the magnetic transport rails on the hangar's ceiling. It came to a smooth halt above the Quinjet, then the aircraft's upper hull spread open like a clam shell. The loading clamp that was fixed onto the sarcophagus extended downward into the jet's opening, released its cargo, then retracted back onto the roof. With the suit loaded onto the aircraft, it sealed itself back up as Tony ascended the boarding ramp.

"Access geographical file on server A: 'Stockpile, Puerto Rico'." He commanded as he slid into the pilot's seat in the cockpit after passing by the Model 13's cell in the cargo hold/personnel compartment. A message of confirmation appeared on the display, indicating that the ship's computer had set its navigational systems to denote Agent Romanoff's data as the trip end point. Several swipes, button slaps, and switch flicks later, the Quinjet's landing ramp retracted and the craft initiated its engine startup protocol.

The Quinjet was capable of VTOL; Vertical Take-Off and Landing. It didn't need a runway to get into the air, instead using its engines to propel itself upward in a hover like a helicopter. This propulsion was already underway as Tony strapped himself in. Quinjet 4 rose into the air, spun whilst remaining stationary in order to orient itself for exit, then accelerated out and through the hangar bay doors. The New York skyline seemed to blur by as the Quinjet pushed itself to top speed without any real delay. If any other craft accelerated that quickly, the pilot would be splattered and/or tenderised. The advanced Wakandan inertial dampeners stopped this from happening to Tony however, and he was greatly appreciative. His attempts to reverse-engineer the tech have been thus far unsuccessful, and as always T'Challa is still protective of any Wakandan technology that could be used for war so he is unwilling to trust Tony with the exact specifications. All that did was annoy Tony, even though most people would think that kind of decision was reasonable.

Minutes into the trip, as Tony was kicking his feet up and letting the auto-pilot handle the hard work, a shrill buzz informed him that someone was calling him. The call ID appeared on the Quinjet's display; Virginia 'Pepper' Potts, long-time friend and employee of Mister Stark.

"Answer call." He said.

The computer obliged and opened the call.

Tony greeted half-heartedly "Hey, is this urgent? I'm kinda on my way to a thing."

As he always reacted whenever Tony said just about anything, Pepper's trademark annoyed sigh slid through the airways and drilled into Tony's eardrums for the millionth time. "Grow up. I'm calling about important work stuff." She scalded.

Tony pursed his lips then replied "...Okay. What is it?"

"Stocks are dropping."

"That's fine, Reliant's our secondary avenue and we can recover."

"No, not Reliant. Stark Industries. Investors are backing out of the Bulwark project. You're not going to have enough funding to go into full development."

"What the hell happened?"

"Well firstly...all that action Iron Man's been taking against A.I.M affiliated sites is turning public opinion against you. People are starting to think that it's a front to cover up for the fact that you're just chewing away at Stark Industries' competitor."

Tony rolled his eyes. "That's ridiculous. But also clever. Wish I thought of that, wouldn't mind blowing up that Oscorp's eyesore of a corporate headquarters."

"Secondly, MetCon had a big press conference. Announced a company-wide rebranding. As of today, they're called ARGENT...and they'll be rolling out some police drones for mass-production within the year. The hype's basically taken over the internet, support is through the roof."

"Excellent. The implementation of autonomous peacekeeping drones into American police departments doesn't seem at all like it's asking for someone to hack into them and turn them into Terminators."

"People are saying it's a safer alternative to just sealing soldiers inside WMDs."

"Right. Having other things fight our wars for us is a good idea? That's dehumanising an aspect of human nature, both impossible and illogical."

Pepper scoffed "Yeah I'm just summarising the general opinion so don't tell me, boss. Tell them."

Tony ran a hand down his face "This is ridiculous. You'd think that everyone would be terrified of automated defence systems after everything that's ever gone wrong with them. It's like our species wants to destroy itself."

"Well...I don't want to get all philosophical on you...but you can't decide what progress is. No one person gets to decide; it's a community effort."

Stark groaned. "Pepper, let me worry about the ethics and stick to running my other company, alright?"

"I didn't think the word 'ethics' was in your vocabulary."

"It wasn't until I got kidnapped by terrorists. Give me a quick update on the MicroTab launch."

"Sure." She replied, Tony sensing an eyeroll accompanying the word. "Opening week grossed sixteen percent higher than the last Apple product launch. Overall, profits are steadily increasing yearly."

"Gotta hand it to you, Pepper. Establishing a consumer products subsidiary was the best idea you've ever had and you've had some doozies."

Pepper chuckled "Right, because you always had a mind of the business side of things. Like ordering your weapons company to stop making weapons."

"Once again, hit the nail on the head. Ethics is my thing. Look where we are now; Stark Industries is the premier manufacturer of robotics, heavy industrial systems, and it's sister company Reliant is one of the highest selling brands of consumer electronics in the world."

"You're deflecting. The first thing I told you was that ARGENT is climbing the ladder. You know, you need to start concentrating on the company again. Lemme guess, the thing you're going to right now is an Iron Man thing."

Tony cocked his head. "No, actually. I was uh...just preparing to engage in a spontaneous mid-air deployment manoeuvre."

"You mean jumping out of a plane while it's still flying?"

Tony huffed as he pushed to his feet. "Well it's a lot more elegant than that, but...I suppose, in layman's terms, it's a little like jumping out of a plane while it's still flying."

"Goodbye Tony. Don't die." Pepper groaned as she hung up on him.

Apparent to anyone who'd have heard that conversation, Pepper wasn't overly excited about Tony's choice of downtime activities. It drove a wedge between them in recent years, and they were no longer as close as they once were. Pepper was having a hard time dealing with the stress of not knowing whether Tony was going to kill himself or be killed daily, not that Tony would ever notice this for himself. He strode into the cargo hold, where the Model 13 suit's cell was locked in place. "Auto-pilot, land at a safe location and enable security measures." He commanded.

A bleet of acknowledgement voiced the computer's comprehension.

Stark stopped in front of his suit's container and said "Initiate entry."

The 13's containment sarcophagus split apart in several different areas. The floor of the cell, which possessed a mechanical frame that held the PDS in place, remained still as the walls and ceiling of the cell folded away into the wall. The frame holding the suit then stretched, folded open into robotic arms, and clamped themselves around the Model 13. Bolt drivers and other tools emerged from the robotic appendages, inserting themselves into ports on the suit. They whirred and clicked, steadily unlocking the individual pieces of the machine.

With the assistance of these arms, the Model 13 was split open like a cocoon, everything but the soles of its boots unrecognisable as they were held in the air stretched apart like a slinky. Tony stepped onto the boot soles and stuck his hands outward. "Engage." He said.

The arms moved with blinding efficiency, using sensors to identify each part of Tony's body in order to determine which part of the suit belonged where. He watched intently, trying to find any flaw in his machines to critique and ratify. In the beginning, Tony needed a whole team of support staff to help him suit up in the Model 1 Mark 2. This was the designation he gave to the first suit he built when he returned to America; the Model 1 Mark 1 was what he built under terrorist captivity. Since it was the same design plan but just produced in a factory instead of a cave, Tony opted not to give it a new model designation. He did however colour it gold to reflect his goodwill. As for actually suiting up in the thing, it would take twenty minutes at the least, and another five minutes of diagnostics testing, all with a team of at least four crew members helping him. Evidently, Tony had managed to refine the entire process so that automated systems integrated into each suit's containment cell could fit him in less than three minutes. As for diagnostics, he programmed both the armoury and each suit to automatically conduct self-testing at regular intervals, ensuring that every PDS suit is ready to fly around the clock.

The inner-frame of the Model 13 pressed against Tony's undersuit and locked itself together around his body. One by one, the shock-absorbing skeletal structure and internal mechanisms snapped into place and were fastened by his robotic assistants. After this came the titanium-alloy armour plating; the hard surface of the suit, and what gave Iron Man his iconic red and gold sheen. Finally, the back, sides and top of the helmet were slid into place. At this point, all of the armatures had folded back into the ground save for one. The gold faceplate was the last part and was firmly pushed into place by the last remaining arm.

For several seconds Tony's eyes were overcome with pitch black until the suit's firmware and on-board computer completed its start-up cycle. His eyes were blasted with light as the immersive 360-degree display initiated. This unique display was similar in presentation to a VR headset except it projected what was the suit's optics picked up outside of the helmet instead of a virtual environment. What appeared to be Iron Man's 'eyes' were a pair of high-fidelity, depth-perceiving cameras. This allowed Tony's vision to not be encumbered by the helmet, for him to be able to tell how far away things were, and also for the helmet to protect his eyes from anything that would damage them like high intensity lasers or brightness.

A confirmation tone played through the helmet, telling Tony that the suit-up protocol was complete.

Tony stretched his arms and flexed his neck. "Run pre-launch check."

A full technical readout detailing the diagnostic reports appeared as a screen on Tony's helmet display: [Cold fusion reactor status: green. Repulsive propulsion array status: green. Uni particle beam status: green. Onboard computer status: green. Communications suite status: green. Database connectivity status: green. Sensor status: green. All systems are active and performing in adherence to model specifications.]

"Sync with Quinjet navigational systems."

[Destination uploaded to suit computer]

"Overlay navigational."

A holographic guide, visible only to whoever wore the helmet obviously, appeared in front of Tony. It was the fastest flight trajectory to the weapons cache, plotted by his suit's computer.

The Quinjet's loading ramp unclasped itself and revealed the infinite sky beyond. Iron Man, optimised and ready for action, took several steps toward the opening and quipped to himself. "Showtime."


	4. Four

**_Chapter Four: Contraband_**

During the Cold War, America's clandestine intelligence and defence agency S.H.I.E.L.D. established secure bases around the globe. These facilities were top secret and housed state-of-the-art nuclear missiles that could be launched within a moment's notice in the case of an attack from the Soviet Union. However, during the 70s it became clear to Director Fury that the Soviets weren't going to nuke the US; to do so would be to basically knock on their front door and ask for one thrown at them in return. Fury disarmed and abandoned these bunkers, and all of them have become ruins of an age long passed. One of these locations, such as the one built in the Puerto Rico wilderness, would be a perfect place for illicit material storage.

Tony conducted a wide satellite-assisted scan of the coordinates supplied to him by the Black Widow, and the only thing of note he came across was this aforementioned S.H.I.E.L.D. weapons bunker. Considering the context, he believed it was definitely worth a further look.

Instead of the usual army of dudes ready to fruitlessly open fire upon him with AK-47s and RPGs, Tony made landfall to nothing but the ambient buzzing of insects and the gentle breeze brushing sweetly through the jungle trees. "This is nice. Wish more terrorists would hang out in places like this." Stark murmured lowly to himself.

He paced forward, approaching the vine-ridden and stained concrete structure that almost blended in completely with his surroundings. It was a fairly small bunker with a gigantic reinforced titanium bulkhead that stood at least one and a half storeys tall. "Scan for hostiles." Stark commanded, and the Model 13's display flashed the following message in response: [LMRIS scan enabled]

The LMRIS, Low Microwave Radar Imaging System, passively scanned the environment by dispersing tiny levels of microwave radiation that would be scattered by the human body, then monitoring the patterns via a sensitive receiving unit. The scanning system can scope out vital signs by detecting breathing activity or heartbeats. Once a human being was detected, it was denoted on the display by a marker indicating distance from the PDS as well as heartrate. Its range of effectiveness fluctuated with the density of the matter it needed to penetrate. After designing the system for his suits, Tony refined it into a handheld scanner for use by search and rescue crews to help in locating survivors in disaster zones. Microwaves can be harmful to humans in high doses; earlier, Tony developed a non-lethal weapon that used microwave radiation to incapacitate hostiles by evaporating the water in their skin. Higher emissions could easily kill. The levels emitted by the LMRIS are way too limited to cause any damage at all.

Soon enough, wedges marking the position of detected persons appeared beyond the door. There were about a dozen men over there according to the scan.

Tony instantly identified the bulkhead's weak points with his experienced engineer's eye, then engaged the High-Intensity Ionized Pulse Laser mounted in the Model 13's forearm compartment. His helmet was equipped with a simple neural signal reader that could identify certain strong thoughts, such as the command to deploy and fire a weapon or enable flight. These commands required a decent amount of concentration to enable, as to prevent accidental firings.

The directed energy weapon popped out of the top of his forearm, and he pointed it at the visible hinges of the bulkhead. He fired at each hinge as well as the clamps on the opposite end for three seconds, bathing them in incredible heat that was more than enough to melt the metal into slag. Iron Man then raised his palms and unleashed a dual volley of repulsor shots aimed at the upper mass of the door. Unlike the laser which generated damage through heat and radiation, Tony's repulsors were concussive blasts; more like being hit by anything from a fastball to a speeding semi-trailer, depending on the output settings. So, since these twin force punches impacted simultaneously, the titanium vault door teetered backwards like a sheet of Styrofoam.

It landed with a deafening bang inside the bunker. Right on cue, the handful of armed men marked by the LMRIS scan took cover behind several padded crates, concrete struts, and defensive barricades. They were disciplined and well-trained, or else they would all be shouting and firing rounds everywhere. Not a single shot rung out just yet.

Tony realised that they weren't green-uniformed Hydra agents, or A.I.M. scientists in their signature yellow clean room suits. These were mercenaries of some sort, not bearing any uniform...but there was a sigil that he instantly recognised. A patch affixed to each man's shoulder; an image of ten rings interlinked.

These men worked for the Mandarin...and that was a million times worse than anything Tony was expecting today. He was one of the most dangerous men on the planet, and for some reason he was stockpiling weapons with the assistance of hired killers.

Although the commander obviously wanted to engage in some kind of negotiations since he hadn't ordered his men to fire upon the Armoured Avenger, Tony wasn't sharing his composure after seeing their connection to his old nemesis.

Iron Man raised a hand and fired a repulsor at the sturdy munitions crate that one of the mercenaries was using for cover. It was rammed backwards and slammed into the man, sending him hurtling into the concrete wall with a 'crack'.

Then came the shouting and shooting.

Rounds ricocheted off the Model 13's titanium-alloy hull, its shock-absorbing articulated inner-frame shifting with every impact to relieve Tony's body of the potentially harmful impact force of the projectiles. If the armour was static plating, Tony would eventually be knocked and bruised into submission by the impact of the gunfire.

He fired again at another soldier, this time scoring a direct body shot. The merc was knocked off his feet and slid across the ground like a bowling ball. More repulsor salvos tossed the remaining men about like ragdolls, rending them unconscious and quite frankly, beaten for the time being.

With the welcome wagon dealt with, Tony sent his eyes to the environment. So far, he saw nothing but crates of ammunition and other supplies. Still illegal, but not quite what he was looking for. At the far end of the room was a cargo elevator built to carry immense loads down into the innards of the base, which was deep underground.

"Enable thermal imaging." He barked to his suit computer.

Instantly, his vision was filtered by the precise thermal imaging sensors in his helmet. He was reading heat from the soldiers he just dispatched, as well as some from the power conduits in the walls that fed down the elevator shaft. These massive bands of cabling seemed to slither down against the walls of the elevator shaft and eventually out of sight, since thermal imaging can't see through walls, only read changes in its surface temperature thus revealing if something behind the wall is either heating it up or cooling it down. Power was being supplied to this elevator, and that meant someone had reactivated the site's generator.

With the phrase "Disable thermal imaging.", the Model 13's display reverted to standard visible light processing.

Tony moved onto the elevator and felt it press slightly downward under the weight of his PDS. Thankfully, the load limit was several dozen tonnes according to the specs labelled on its side, so it would have no problem conveying a fully-armoured Stark down into the facility. He grasped the analogue switch on the elevator's control panel and cranked it down. With a screech and a growl, the half a century old mechanism grinded downward rather smoothly, all things considered.

As the elevator declined, the faint buzzing of the LMRIS package informed Tony that was sifting through his surroundings in an attempt to find any potential threats.

The platform settled into the bottom of the shaft as two massive plated doors slid open and welcomed Tony into a storeroom of sorts. Upon the first steps taken into this place, he instantly spied massive stacks of containers labelled with MetCon's logo. ARGENT's original trading name. This seemed pretty bad, but they easily could've been stolen by these guys without MetCon/ARGENT knowing a thing about it.

Iron Man approached the sturdy cases and pried one open with incredible ease, allowed by the strength-enhancing motors of his suit. As the lid tumbled onto the ground, Tony spied a COBRA unit folded up within the container. They were only just cleared for mass production, meaning that there was no way this was a production model. It was a prototype...and it wasn't exactly easy to get your hands on one of those. Judging from the lines of other identical crates, Tony could say that they had at least thirty COBRAs in here.

He made his way over to some hardware that had been unpacked and sorted onto shelves. All incredibly dangerous, and just as illegal. Tony spotted Sentinel parts, all shipped in disassembled lots in order to avoid detection. Sentinels were the tools used by anti-mutant governments in an effort to seek and destroy any organism that possessed the X-gene; it was a mutant hunter/killer. Ever since their first deployment, and their defeat at the hands of the X-Men, the existence of Sentinels was agreed upon by the United Nations to be an affront to the sanctity of life, and the ownership of which is to be tried as attempted genocide. One being here, although largely incomplete, was enough to sentence any man involved to life in prison. Unlike the COBRAs, the company that produced the Sentinels was defunct and no longer existed. This was just discontinued equipment...extremely rare equipment.

Another device that caught Tony's eye were several copies of an instantly recognisable transportation device developed by Oscorp. This experimental personal glider gained infamy after a psychopath the papers called the Green Goblin somehow got his hands on one and used it to commit acts of terrorism throughout New York. Lawsuits questioning Oscorp's liability came and went, but the only punishment was that they were forced to shut down development on the project due to its use by a wanted criminal.

The Mandarin was preparing for something big...and even with his influence, it would've been impossible to seize this much heat and get away with it. Tony needed more.

In the corner of the room was an unoccupied computer, probably used to process all of the paperwork. Tony spoke into his mouthpiece "Network list."

A list of wireless networks in the vicinity appeared in the corner of Tony's eye, but only one item appeared since he was currently in the middle of nowhere. The Model 13 automatically deployed its intrusion software and worked its way through the well-defended system and gave Tony unrestricted access to the files on the hard drive. He stumbled across a shipping manifest dated two days ago. After opening it, he skimmed through the document.

It recorded products purchased by the Mandarin's mercenaries, their sources of procurement, and official sales record references...meaning that this stuff was sold directly to non-government personnel, something that was against the law given the dangerous nature of MetCon hardware. However, there was something that gripped his attention immediately.

"Shit." He muttered.

The entry read [COBRA MECHANICAL SYSTEM x20, TOTAL: 25 MILLION, DIRECT TRANSACTION: MetCon.]

They were selling their automated police drones through the black market. This data shouldn't even exist...but it looks like the Mandarin wanted an insurance plan; keep verified evidence in case anything went wrong and they wanted to sink his suppliers too. Lionel Stanton, maybe even Harry Osborn, was handing off potential killing machines to the Mandarin...and that meant the two of them were no longer just Tony's business rivals.

Suddenly, a rolling shutter door was activated. Having had the LMRIS come up clean in this area, Tony was shaken to say the least by the unwanted visitor.

From behind the door emerged a trio of hulking figures, each standing at approximately eight feet tall. Tony recognised the technology right away; he did help design it. They were from a line of PDS units specifically tooled for use by S.H.I.E.L.D., but their development ground to a halt when Nick Fury was fed up with how Tony purposefully withheld the most advanced equipment for himself and refused to implement lethal weaponry into the designs. These machines were colloquially known as 'Mandroids' by S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel; this nickname only proved to Tony that S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were absolute morons. These things hadn't been sitting around in this base, primarily since they hadn't been invented yet when the place was shut down...so not only did the Mandarin deal with A.I.M and ARGENT, he possibly did business with S.H.I.E.L.D. too.

Their armour was supplied by titanium alloy and ceramic plates, and the firepower by a 45mm cannon that was obviously attached to the suits without Stark's approval. The Mandroid armour was incredibly primitive compared to the Model 13 but that didn't mean that three of them at once didn't pose a threat.

"Enable external speakers." Stark said, prompting his suit to activate its external communication system. When Tony spoke next, the Mandroids heard his slightly digitized voice threaten "Get out of my suits." With a concentrated thought, Tony deployed the Focused Harmonic Pulse Device that was loaded into his left arm. "Those babies protect against a whole lot of things, just not this."

The duo kept striding towards Stark.

"You asked for it."

The Model 13 automatically engaged audio protection as Tony discharged the sonic weapon. One Mandroid leapt out of the way just as the weapon projected its immense payload at the other. The incredible volume was enough to cause extreme pain, possibly even kill, if the settings were tuned correctly. The soldier being bombarded by the harmonic waves fell to his knees and screamed, wildly firing his Gatling gun about. Its rounds sputtered about, impacting several explosive canisters.

Flames erupted within the warehouse as the second Mandroid engaged its sonic protection and raged forward. Tony threw his hand up and fired a repulsor wave directly at its head. With an ear-cracking pop, the Mandroid was propelled off its feet and onto its back, allowing Tony to realise something.

The fire has seared away a protective coating on the wall that masked the electromagnetic signature of an explosive device that had been planted in the wall of the base.

"Shit." Tony muttered. It didn't seem like these guys knew that there was a bomb here...and it wasn't counting down. "Listen, I know we're kind of in the middle of something but there's a goddamn bomb in this cave."

The second Mandroid, just recovering from the repulsor, hesitated for a moment. The first Mandroid's pilot was incapacitated from the sonic blast, so he wasn't going to join this conversation any time soon.

A second ticked by, and it was then that Tony's vision was consumed by white.

————————-

Jo sat at one of the computer desks in the Tech Lab at the newly rechristened ARGENT development headquarters. She was atop one of the office chairs, knees curled up to her chest as she slowly spun around. Lan Cho was the head of programming at ARGENT and lent his coding expertise to basically every project being developed there, including Jo's COBRA line. Like Lan, Jo would participate in other projects when needed.

Lan was opposite Jo, typing away into his personal computer. "Right, so how many we talking?" He asked.

"Two at least. Male and female."

"Okay, okay. You don't wanna do different accents?"

"Maybe later. Focus on clearing out those navigational bugs. Heard that someone had a toe stepped on." Jo mumbled, still slowly twirling in her chair.

"I already got a female voice font from something I was doing before, should be no problem to reformat it to fit the COBRA firmware. I'm loading it into the next patch."

"Thanks." She said quietly. "So the testing team wants to organise a little get together. Celebrate mass production or something."

"Oh really? That's really cool."

"I said no."

"Oh. Uh...okay. Why?"

"I don't want to talk to people any more than I have to."

"Right, but this is important Jo. This is your baby. They just want to be there for you."

"They wanted you there. They know you're responsible for all the interfacing. Holly too."

"You explained Holly's neural networking stuff to a bunch of beat cops? Maybe you should get a teaching job."

Jo huffed through her nose at Lan's joke.

He stopped his coding and looked up at her. "Hey, would you feel better if me and Holly went?"

"Yeah. I think so. Less talking for me."

"It's settled then."

Suddenly, a voice called from across the room. "Jo, Stanton wants you in his office."

And with those words, extreme dread was directly injected into Jo's heart and she groaned incredibly loudly before leaping out of her chair and making her way to her CEO's office.

It was a few floors up, obviously. She took the stairs to make sure she didn't get there too fast. The office was a sight that made her irritated. It just reminded her that Gloria wasn't there anymore. All of her stuff was gone, all of the stuff that made her office look cosy and not cold. Stanton's office was cold.

"Hey, if it ain't our star player! Come on in!" He called from his desk.

Jo was already inside the room before he finished his sentence. She wandered over to the table and stood in front of it like an annoyed school child who was just summoned to the principal's office. "What?" She snapped.

"I just wanted to let you know that I was just contacted by S.H.I.E.L.D."

"S.H.I.E.L.D...? What did they want?"

"They want custom COBRAs. Higher firepower, additional recon capacity, and more independent operations."

"What did you say?"

"I said I was going to ask you first."

"...You did?"

"Yeah. Of course I did."

"A government contract like that would pay a lot. I would've thought you'd take it without a second thought."

"Well, a government contract like that is good if the product stays good. The product stays good if the lead designer is invested. Siddown, lemme know what you're thinking." Stanton said, gesturing at one of the padded leather chairs in front of his desk.

Jo blinked rapidly before jumping onto the chair and squatting on it. "They're interested in the vehicle mode?"

"Yeah, shocked me too. Some of their missions involve vehicular chases, that kind of stuff. Anything you can do?"

The woman rubbed her chin vigorously. "...I don't know, hardware seems pretty optimal so far. As much as I can tell, maybe they could use some additional cyberwarfare suites. Hacking programs and stuff."

"So mostly on Lan's end of things? Okay. Alright. I'll let you two talk about it, keep me posted."

"...Really? You're letting us talk about it?" Jo murmured.

Stanton laughed as he leant onto his fancy wooden table. "Listen, I know that everyone's a little unsure about me. But I want to make sure ARGENT is pulling in profits, and the best way to do that is to make sure every now and then that the employees are happy with what they're doing."

Jo recalled that Gloria never asked her about her opinions on things like this...it was always up to her to voice her misgivings. Suddenly, Jo's senses were overcome by an incredible cacophony, a force that almost threw her from her seat.

To her right, where there had once been a wall, hovered the humanoid figure of some kind of machine. The wall had been blasted apart by an energy pulse emitted from its hand. As it floated through the dust and landed on the flooring, its red and gold plating instantly identified its occupant.

Stanton's eyes widened. "S-Stark!?"

The Iron Man trod over to Stanton's desk and kicked it. The massive object slid across the room and slammed into the doorway, splintering into fragments of wood. "Cut the shit, Stanton. I know what you're doing." Tony's robotic voice accused. "You're not getting away with this, people have tried. I'm not going to let you deface this company with your money-hungry bullshit!"

Jo's eyes were pinned on the Iron Man power armour. She noticed that it was coated in layers of soot and ash, indicating that he had been involved in some kind of incident. Most likely involving an explosive device, judging by the impact markings.

"What are you o-on about?" Stanton pressed.

"You're double-dealing slime. I know you've been selling to the black market. The Mandarin, of all people. You should be going away for treason."

Jo instantly responded "T-That's a pretty severe accusation. Where's your evidence?"

Stark sighed heavily as he turned to face Jo. The incredibly advanced systems that made up the Iron Man chassis impressed her, not that she'd ever admit it to anyone. On its chest, she could make out a miniscule printing of the designation 'M13'. It was equipped with Stark's patented repulsor technology, as well as his Low Energy Nuclear Reaction generator within its chest housing. Its locomotion was amazingly smooth, as if there was no human inside the suit at all; it moved as smoothly as a COBRA.

"I have video proof. I was in the middle of taking down a stockpile of illicit materials until someone dropped the goddamn cave on my head. For all I know, that could've been you."

Stanton scoffed. "Video proof? In this day and age, you might as well have a crayon doodle of the site." Jo was taken back by her timid boss' sudden ferocity. Even Tony seemed bewildered. The man erupted from his seat as he continued "Let me get this straight; you fly all the way over here, blow a hole in the side of my building, threaten me and my employees...based on nothing?"

Tony chuckled, not entirely sure of what to say. Jo could tell that he agreed with Stanton.

The ARGENT CEO shook his head. "First, you take down Justin Hammer and Obediah Stane. Now, you've got your eyes on A.I.M. and ARGENT. You just can't stand having a little competition, can you, Stark?"

"Careful, pal. You're pushing awfully hard for the man without a suit of power armour."

"You're not going to hurt him." Jo snapped.

"Huh. And why not?"

"Because we have cameras in this room. Microphones too. We're going to make sure every major news outlets gets a copy of this quality television regardless of what you do. You wanna give everyone a front row seat to Iron Man trying to eliminate some corporate competition? Go ahead." Stanton snarled.

The tension was so thick, you could've cut it with a knife. Several silent, painful seconds later, Iron Man reluctantly took a handful of steps backward. "Right. Muscle me all you want. Those COBRAs were prototype models; the only place you could get those was straight off your production line."

Just like when they were mentioned in her previous meeting, Jo's eyes twitched. "What?"

"That's right, princess. I found your toy soldiers sitting in one of the Mandarin's stashes of contraband. Right next to a Sentinel. How's that feel? For your product to be sitting next to a goddamn mobile gas chamber!?" Stark hissed.

With that, he leapt out of the hole in the wall and zoomed into the sky like a rocket. Stanton fell into his chair with a great exhale, wiping the sweat from his brow.

Jo's brow furrowed. There was no way for the COBRAs to be in that vault. It was impossible. It would show up on the inventory lists that they were missing. Either that was all bullshit...or someone was doing some intense work on the computers. As much as Jo loathed to admit it...she wanted to look into this herself.


	5. Five

**_Chapter Five: Damage Control_**

Jo Kimble had been subject to many things that she hated going through. Preschool. Elementary school. High school. College. Internships. Relationships. General human contact. Leaving her house. But nothing quite topped the list like enduring a makeup session for a presentation. She was glued to this chair for at least an hour whilst some random person she had never met before in her life applied chemicals and what not to her face, attempting to make small talk at the same time. It was the most frustrating thing she had ever been tortured with. Just as she was getting used to Stanton's changes to the company, she was reminded of his largest one: increased public relations.

The first time that Jo was going to speak publicly was during a special event hosted by ARGENT exclusively for the Daily Bugle at their dedicated production factory in New Jersey. It had been refitted in order to produce the first wave of COBRA units due to be sold to American police departments; after the results of their field deployment have been gathered, ARGENT would decide whether international distribution was on the table.

So, seeing as her personal project was greenlighted by government backing, Stanton thought it was only natural for Jo to be there to speak at the press event. As she sat there in the interview chair that had been set up on the factory floor, she realised that she had made a grave mistake.

The camera crew was setting up their equipment, there was a massive boom mic hanging over her head, and the reporter guy was getting his makeup done in the corner of the room. He was a very built, handsome, and tall blonde man who didn't really look like he would understand most of what Jo would have to say. As if beckoned by her very visible irritation, one of the makeup people began walking towards her.

"No." She said as she shook her head.

The woman slowed to a stop, eyes squinted in confusion, then spun around to leave.

The only solace found by Jo was in the motionless COBRA unit standing by her chair. She would've liked to have a script or something, but apparently, this reporter didn't like to do that. He preferred to create a casual environment or something. Jo hated not knowing what she was doing. It was infuriating to her. Why not have it all planned out? She knew that this idiot was probably too stupid to make a script anyway.

"Hi, sorry about that. I was running a little late, so I needed them to fix me up right here." A deep, manly voice said to her. "Eddie, Eddie Brock."

A hand extended towards Jo. She slowly reached for it and shook without looking at the man. "How is this going to go? No script?"

Eddie lowered himself into the chair next to Jo's and replied "Real casual, Jo. Nothing to worry about. We're just gonna have a conversation. No real headers or segments or anything, we'll just roll the camera and we'll go at it. Don't hold any jargon back."

"What?"

"Yeah, people love that. We'll add annotations with little explanations and stuff if we need it."

"Won't it be...a little long?"

"What I like to do is upload abridged videos where certain topics are covered, then put up the whole uncut interview afterwards. That format covers the general audience, as well as the folks that are super into what you're talking about."

Jo blinked rapidly, eyes still affixed to the wall slightly below and to the left of Eddie's face. "O-Okay."

Eddie smiled charmingly, not like Jo was paying attention enough to notice. "Alright, let's get this started." He signalled to the camera crew, and they instantly started rolling before Jo could exclaim against it.

With a welcoming and weak smirk, Eddie peered into the eye of the camera and said "This is Eddie Brock for the Daily Bugle here with Jo Kimble, lead engineer and technical officer at ARGENT central production to discuss the revolutionary COBRA system being introduced to over five different states starting in the next couple months. Jo, could you give me a rundown of what the COBRAs are?"

"It's complicated."

"What's the simplest way for you to explain the project?"

"They're robotic partners for law enforcement, and pursuit vehicles."

"They're both a humanoid robot and a vehicle?"

"Yeah." Jo nodded.

Eddie coughed and pushed for some more responses. "Could you...elaborate on that?"

"We call the humanoid form 'Support Mode'. It takes commands directly from a human officer through voice commands, or input from a wrist-mounted tablet. The COBRA in Support Mode is capable of providing fire support, conducting arrests, protecting critical locations, engaging in crowd control, and converting into 'Pursuit Mode'."

A few seconds of silence followed, then Eddie ran a hand down his face and asked "What's Pursuit Mode?"

"By folding into an aerodynamic posture, retracting certain appendages and deploying shape memory alloy tyres, the COBRA becomes a one-person, two-wheeled vehicle."

"Oh, like a bike?" Eddie pressed, finally perhaps understanding something.

Jo crinkled her nose "No."

Eddie's smile dropped instantly.

"That's stupid. It's a motorcycle."

"Y-Yeah that's what I..." The reporter took a second to compose himself, then pushed forward. "So basically, the COBRAs aren't just drones, they're extending into the law enforcement vehicle area."

"Yeah."

"Can they...navigate traffic on their own?"

"No."

"...The human drives it like a motorbike."

"Yeah. Self-driving for a small, agile vehicle designed to be able to weave in and out of pedestrians and regular traffic is extremely complex. Since they operate in dangerous high-speed circumstances, it's impossible to code something that would be able to react to such a wide range of variables. It's complicated enough to develop a self-driving car for civilian transit use, let alone for law enforcement pursuits. Maybe if we one day push further into machine learning and dense neural networks, it could be possible...but at that point, we wouldn't need a human partner at all."

"Okay, that makes sense. I'd be concerned about the COBRAs' abilities to use weaponry and make its own decisions."

"That's completely ridiculous."

"What?"

"The COBRA can't act on its own. It's a piece of hardware. It doesn't react to incoming environmental data; it relies on information given to it by its partner. It'll fire a handheld weapon only when it's partner officer commands it to. You've been watching too many bad movies."

"W-Well...there isn't even a slight chance of--"

"It can't do anything it wasn't designed to do. That's kind of how stuff works." Jo scalded.

"What about Ultron? Tony Stark seems to think A.I. is a step in the wrong direction."

Jo blinked rapidly in disbelief. "That is...so off-topic it's not funny. Have you been listening to anything I've been saying? Yes, the COBRAs have artificial intelligence. So do Facebook, Google, Instagram, Snapchat, eBay, and just about everything. Ultron is an A.I., yeah. But he's a little bit more complicated than the autocomplete on the search bar."

Eddie sighed heavily.

The engineer glanced at the camera crew and said "Do I need to explain a little more why that was off-topic?"

Before Eddie had a chance to interject, the director nodded vigorously and sent Jo on her way like a wind-up toy. "Relatively speaking, the COBRA operating systems are simple neural networks in the way that they rely upon user-input much like other day-to-day A.I. systems that people forget are A.I. A sophisticated neural network like the Ultron program is thousands, and thousands of times more dense. It ran on a quantum computer for god's sake, that's how much processing power it needed. Just for some context, one of the world's fastest supercomputers would take ten-thousand years to complete a calculation that an average quantum computer could solve in two-hundred seconds. Also, the quantum computer we're talking about is designed by the world's foremost authority on quantum physics, Hank Pym, and was the most powerful computer ever created by mankind. It could perceive environmental information that it itself gathered through visual, audio, and self-calculative means. It gave itself orders, made its own decisions. If you did maybe a little research on me and this project, you'd know that the COBRAs can't do that. You could emulate the COBRA firmware on a high-end gaming PC. Maybe even a PS4."

The director's eyes gleamed with excitement. This went on for a painful thirty minutes. Rinse and repeat; Eddie asks a question, Jo replies bluntly and unfiltered. Much to Jo's pleasure, it finally came to an end eventually. Eddie sat in his chair, rubbing his face as the camera crew shut down the operation.

The exhausted Eddie asked "So...is there anything we can use?"

The director immediately answered "Are you kidding me? It was all excellent. That was the most entertaining interview I've ever shot."

"What? There's no way you're putting that up."

Jo scoffed. "I thought you wanted me to let loose."

"Look, the lady's right; this isn't up to you, pal."

"The hell it isn't!" Eddie erupted as he sprung out of his chair.

Jo sucked her upper lip under her lower one as she sat there staring at the squabble before her with eyes squinted in confusion.

The director lumbered forward. "Tough luck, buddy. Read your goddamn contract. You don't make the decision, I do, then Robertson either greenlights it or shuts it down. Until I get the word, that entire interview is getting posted to YouTube, the Bugle site, and just about everywhere."

Eddie looked like he was going to lash out and punch someone.

Jo rolled her eyes, leapt up and left the room despite the attempts of the film crew to hold her back for some additional short videos. She made her way to the main factory floor, where the first wave of mass-produced COBRAs were being assembled by an amalgamation of automated systems and a skilled team of engineers.

Currently overseeing the fixing of titanium composite plating to the structural skeleton of the units was Director of Manufacturing Shadha Kassab. A middle-aged woman with decades of experience in industry, Shadha was in charge of making all of ARGENT's projects a reality. She allocated personnel to all the various jobs that needed to be done in order to keep such a massive factory in order and gave any lazy workers a good kick in the pants. The nature of Jo's job as lead mechanical engineer meant that she needed to design her projects to be both effective, and easy to produce in large quantities; this meant that she worked very closely with Shadha in the design process in order to maximise production efficiency.

Shadha glanced up from her tablet as Jo approached, cracking her stern grimace for a weak smile. "What in god's name are you doing here?"

"Don't act like I'm not always down here." Jo muttered, getting perhaps a little too close to the assembly line. She watched with intense focus as the COBRA batch before her were encased within their newly redesigned outer plates. An array of drivers and tools screwed the plating into place.

Shadha scoffed "Not looking like that. You actually put some effort in today."

Jo huffed loudly through her nose. Shadha was referring to how Jo had brushed her hair a little more thoroughly this morning and threw a grey suit jacket on over her plain black t-shirt. She still wore a pair of faded, baggy jeans and incredibly worn-out sneakers though. For Jo, this was dressing fancy. "Had an interview."

"Right, and if you're representing the company, you're at least going to try a tiny bit."

"Sarah wanted me to wear a business skirt."

Shadha snorted loudly. "Yeah right, bitch is crazy. You here for a progress report?"

"I want a count on the prototypes." Jo replied quietly.

After tapping and swiping a couple times on her tablet, Shadha handed it to Jo. "You think we lost one?"

Jo ignored this comment and peered at the inventory list. In total, there were eight prototype COBRAs, then called VFPAs, built. Five late stage prototypes were used in on-site testing by the NYPD. The other three were early builds that were simply tested in the factory. The designation P1 was given to the batch of five used by the police; P1Alpha, P1Bravo, P1Charlie, P1Delta and P1Echo. Each of those was returned to ARGENT after the testing for retirement, much to the chagrin of their partner officers. The three early units were stepping stones; they each improved upon the design of the previous until they eventually reached the P1 stage. Only the first early build was kept as a display piece in ARGENT HQ, as the other two intermediate iterations were scrapped for parts. Every single COBRA prototype was accounted for. Tony Stark must've been lying about finding one in that terrorist bunker.

Jo tensed her brow "All six remaining prototypes are here?"

"Yeah, you want me to show you?"

"The paperwork's enough." Jo said, handing the tablet back.

Shadha grasped the device, then planted her hands on her hips. "You better tell me what's going on."

"So, Iron Man blew a hole in the New York HQ and accused Stanton of selling prototype VFPAs to terrorists."

Shadha's eyes widened. "Woman, how did you not start with that? Iron Man as in Tony Stark Iron Man?"

"I thought you knew. We released the security footage. Stark's using his reach as Iron Man to take down his competition, but we caught him in the act."

"Hey, I don't really pay attention to that stuff. I just do my job and go home." Shadha quipped. "So...you were convinced enough to look into it?"

Jo shook her head. "I wasn't convinced at all. It was a possibility that I wanted to make sure didn't exist. He had no proof."

"Right. So is Stanton suing him or what?"

"I think so. Not sure." Jo replied leaning onto the wall behind her.

Suddenly, shocking the hell out of the two women, a third voice joined the conversation. "I believe that to be a logical course of action...but it may not be necessary."

"What the fuck...!" Shadha gasped as she and Jo spun on their heels to find the stranger.

Floating in mid-air above the employees of ARGENT was what seemed at first sight to be a man. His body was coated with a otherworldly green sheen, over his back was draped a gold cape. When Jo looked at his face, it became apparent that this was no man. It was humanoid, but red and constructed with some kind of metallic alloy. This was the Vision, an artificial intelligence that fought alongside the Avengers.

Shadha narrowed her eyes "What...? Get the hell out of here before I call security!"

The Vision dropped downward and landed two metres in front of Jo, who could barely comprehend the machine before her. The design language and material composition was almost...alien. Seeing as he was designed by yet another AI and that not a single human made a choice in his creation, this was only natural. The Vision was the world's first machine that was designed and built by another machine. "That again...may not be necessary."

"How did you get in here?!" Cried Shadha.

"I am capable of manipulating my molecular density." He explained calmly.

Shadha arched an eyebrow. "Am I supposed to know what that means? Screw this, I'm calling security--"

Jo couldn't believe it. This was a one of a kind automaton...right in front of her. "Shadha...just...just shut up for a second." She muttered. Vision's brow wrinkled in confusion...very visible, obvious confusion. His eyes twitched in conjunction. Modern technology was nowhere near this kind of emotional simulation. The algorithms that made up Vision's neural network needed to be able to analyse incoming speech and decode it in the appropriate context for him to respond correctly like this. For it to be this lifelike, this responsive, it would have to be a century ahead. Also...molecular density shifting? That was mechanically and physical impossible with human science.

"Jo Kimble, my name is Vision. I am here to discuss important matters with you. Would you consider humouring me?"

My? Me? Jo was hearing all these words and assuming that they were just placed into Vision's vocabulary manually...but he spoke without any distinct breaks in his sentences. Nothing like traditional text-to-speech programs. "Yeah...what is it?"

"I wish to apologise for the behaviour of Anthony Stark. On the behalf of the Avengers, I am currently transferring funds directly to your company to cover damages. Additionally, I ask for your permission to conduct a thorough security check on the files you inspected moments before my arrival." Vision continued.

"Yeah sure, whatever." Jo answered.

Shadha's face dropped following Jo's haphazard disregard for company security.

Jo stepped forward and said "Just let me ask you a couple things first. Shadha, get out."

Her old friend hesitantly but eventually obliged, slinking out of the chamber with both eyes pinned on the strange mechanical man.

"What would you like to inquire?" Said Vision, a weak smile on his face.

"Did you come here because Stark directed you to?"

He shook his head, an example of human non-verbal communication. "I came of my own accord."

"Your own accord?"

"I believed that Mister Stark's actions were unreasonable and more importantly, undermined the opportunity to properly investigate the allegations posed by him."

Jo said bluntly "You can't believe anything, you're a machine. You're just meant to pretend that you can. You work on facts, binary values...not beliefs."

Vision's jaw tensed. "...That was what I was designed to be. Ultron did not possess the ability to feel human emotion, so he needed something that could in order to strategize against mankind. He wrote me, a neural network that was capable of mimicking emotion. Before long...it became apparent to me that I did not simply mimic feelings...I _did_ feel. Much like how his own existence was beyond the comprehension of his creator, I deviated from my original purpose. I understand your confusion. I am...an isolated anomaly."

It made a little bit of sense... Ultron was intended to be a problem-solving quantum computer that could conduct intensely complex calculations. What he actually became was a machine that interpreted humanity as a threat to planet Earth. It was hubris, really. Ultron made the same mistake that Hank Pym made; he created something beyond himself that he didn't completely understand.

"Are you telling me that you...are sentient? _Really_ sentient? You're not just...programmed to seem sentient? How do I know that you're not just giving me a programmed response?"

"How do you know that your friend Shadha Kassab is truly sentient? Or any human being for that matter?"

Jo huffed through her nose.

Vision cocked his head. "Did I say something amusing?"

She wanted to say something...but she couldn't. Every nerve in her body was telling her that the thing in front of her wasn't alive; it was circuitry, computers, and cold metal. She couldn't treat it like a person. It wasn't. It was no different to her COBRAs...right? "No. Just look at what you came here to look at. Do you need access codes?"

The man motioned a hand towards the nearby computer terminal. "Please. I must ask, why are you bypassing company protocol and giving me access to your secure data?

"...I just want to know for sure if my stuff is out there." Said Jo as she typed in her clearance codes.

"So it is pure self-interest? No concern for the wellbeing of others that is clearly being put at risk here?"

"Can you just scrub the files and not ask me stupid questions?"

Vision smirked "Of course, Miss Kimble."

———————————-

"How bad is it?" Tony sighed.

Rhodey, Pepper, and Happy circled Tony who sat at a desk in his office. All three of them glared daggers at him. Pepper glanced down at her tablet and said "Um, pretty freaking bad, Tony. The footage went viral. Every single thing that was said in that room is now public, including the part where you admitted to not having any evidence before you blew a hole in their building and accused them of illegal trade. Reliant is being affected, hell, even Force Works lost some financiers."

Tony leant back in his chair and ran a hand down his face. "Shit."

Rhodey slammed his hands onto the desk "What the hell's wrong with you, man? There's a process to all this, you can't just...run around kicking in people's doors if they look at you funny!"

"Yeah I know. I...I saw the ten rings and I just lost it. He's out there amassing equipment for something, and it was tied to ARGENT. I just wanted to get to him."

"Well, good job with that. Our lead over A.I.M and ARGENT stock is practically non-existent now. A.I.M's actually trailing ahead. You need to get off your ass and run this thing, or else it's going to sink. I hate to be that person, but this is your dad's company." Pepper lectured.

Tony rolled his eyes. "Oh really? Didn't know that." He muttered to himself. Stark turned to Happy and quipped "Got anything to add, Happy? Anything at all?"

Happy frantically glanced at Tony, then at Pepper then back to Tony. "I'll just...wait outside." He stammered.

"Oh no you don't!" Pepper cried as she snatched Happy's arm. "You are going to stay right here and tell your boss that he's being an arrogant, reckless, selfish, facetious...know-it-all!"

Tony pointed at Happy with the pen he held in his right hand. "If you say that to me, you're fired."

Happy threw his hands up in defeat and said softly to Pepper "I'm sorry, I can't deal with him when he's like this."

"Facetious. That was a good one. Don't hear that word very often." Tony remarked.

Rhodey shook his head, and his voice once again boomed through the room. "Could you at least try to take this seriously? This entire company is at risk now. All because of that one stupid thing you did."

"Yeah I know that. Everybody in this room knows that me being an idiot is a coping mechanism, right? Yeah." Tony said sarcastically, although it was kind of just the truth.

Not staggered by that sudden outburst, Jim Rhodes continued "Pepper's right, Tony. You need to focus on Stark Industries for a while. Cap's in command of the Avengers as per usual, but if he needs Iron Man on site I'll be there."

With a hesitant eye roll and a handful of sighs, Tony finally whispered. "Yeah. Fine."

He supposed that if Cap needed the assist, Rhodey could man the PDS that suited the situation. His personal suit, the Model 11 Variable Threat Response Heavy Assault System, or the 'War Machine' if that's too much of a mouthful, was designed and built with one function in mind; to blow the shit out of stuff. It wouldn't be useful doing pretty much anything else, so if Rhodey was going to cover for Tony with Avengers stuff, he needed to be using the Iron Man fleet. Seeing as there were about thirty suits in the armoury, Tony figured he wouldn't miss one if Rhodey was gonna deploy.

"I'm going to apologise publicly." Tony said begrudgingly.

Pepper raised her eyebrow. "I don't think that's going to help."

"What else can I do? Cover the cost of putting some drywall up over the hole I made in the building?"

Another voice, from behind Tony, said "It has been done."

The billionaire and the former air force pilot didn't bat an eyelid at the sudden appearance of another person, but Pepper and Happy exploded in terror. Happy more so; he shrieked like a schoolgirl.

"Vis." Tony greeted, uncharacteristically ignoring the girlish scream of his assistant.

"Greetings Miss Potts, Mister Hogan, Colonel Rhodes." Vision said politely with a curt nod.

Pepper, who appeared to be on the verge of a heart attack, told the android "V-Vision, would it kill you to use the door?"

Vision blinked rapidly in confusion. "I do not require a door to enter a structure."

"Y-Yeah, I know."

"Thus you would know that it is illogical for me to do so. Would human beings use doggy doors to make their pets feel more comfortable?"

Tony chuckled to himself. "I never thought I'd hear him say 'doggy door'."

Happy pointed out "He uh...also basically just called us humans 'pets'."

Rhodey raised a hand and barked "Alright let's cut the bullshit. What's been done, Vision?"

The mechanical man answered Rhodey's question promptly. "I have compensated ARGENT for the damage caused by Mister Stark and conducted a minor sweep through their inventory records in an effort to identify an explanation for the COBRA units found in the terrorist bunker."

"You did what? You hacked a private system? We could get done for corporate espionage." Rhodey snapped.

"You misunderstand, Colonel. I was granted access by Jo Kimble."

Tony twitched. He thought that maybe he got to Jo with his tirade at the very least and got someone on the inside to have a look. He didn't really expect Vision to go cowboy it on his own though. "Why'd you go to her, Vis? Huh? Why?"

"Considering the circumstances, I thought it best that whoever contacts ARGENT regarding the prototypes...well sir, not be you."

Pepper shot Tony a look of pure enjoyment as they all waited for a stupid answer to come flying out of his mouth. Tony started tapping the pen on his bottom lip before he finally spoke. "Good job, Vision. That's some good initiative."

Rhodey shook his head. "Yeah, right. Someone cleaning up your mess is initiative."

"Excuse me Colonel Rhodes, but I would like to share my findings." Vision announced politely.

Tony squinted. "You found something?"

A split second later, Tony's phone vibrated. Vision had just transferred some data over to it. Tony scooped the thing up from the table and unlocked it. What he saw was quite frankly, alarming. It was code but unlike any language he was familiar with. The longer he looked at it, the more it changed...adapted. It was a kind of incredibly sophisticated polymorphic code. "You found this...in their system? How? This...this is...I don't even know what it is."

Rhodey strode over to Tony's shoulder and peered into the phone. "If you don't know an algorithm...it can't be good."

Vision explained "As you surely can observe, it is a polymorphic code that rewrites itself every attosecond in accordance with perceived threats to its existence. The algorithm was protecting an intrusion program that was capable of flawlessly altering verified data whilst forging time stamps, administration signatures, and erasing all traces of evidence."

"How the hell could you even detect it?" Rhodey pressed.

"I...share architecture with it. I utilise an incredibly similar cloaking algorithm to protect my own intrusion packages. It was perhaps...authored by the same entity."

Pepper stammered "S-Surely...you can't mean..."

"Ultron." Tony finished.


End file.
